Indian sports news wrap, January 21

SHOOTING

Asian championship: India wins bronze in mixed skeet

Raiza Dhillon and Gurjoat Khangura beat the Kuwait team of Eman Al Shamaa and Abdullah Alrashidi 41-39 to clinch one of the two bronze medals in mixed skeet in the Asian shotgun championship in Kuwait on Sunday.

The medal helped Raiza bag a full set, as she had earlier won the individual silver and team gold in women’s skeet.

The Chinese team of JIang Yiting and Wu Yunxuan won the gold beating qualification toppers Assem Orynbay and Eduard Yechshenko of Kazakhstan 45-43.

The results:

Mixed skeet: 1. China (Jiang Yiting, Wu Yunxuan) 45 (142); 2. Kazakhstan (Assem Orynbay, Eduard Yechshenko) 43 (143); 3. India-2 (Raiza Dhillon, Gurjoat khangura) 41 (138), 4. Kuwait (Eman Al Shamaa, Abdullah Alrashidi) 39 (139); 3. Bahrain (Maryam Hassani, Tammar Alwatt) 39 (139), 4. Qatar (Reem Al Sharshani, Masoud Al-Athba) 38 (138).

-Kamesh Srinivasan

TENNIS

Top seed Darja Semenistaja got the best of an injured Carole Monnet in the final to emerge as the KPB Trust ITF Women’s Open tennis tournament champion at KSLTA stadium here on Sunday.

Darja led sixth seed Carole Monnet 6-1, 3-0 when Carole called it quits due to a troublesome back.

This was the Darja’s 15th ITF title, made all the more memorable by winning the doubles title on Saturday.

“I think Bengaluru is lucky for me,” Darja, 21, said. The Latvian took home the winner’s cheque of $6,094, and earned 50 WTA points each for her singles and doubles victory. Carole won the runner-up cheque for $3,257 and earned 33 WTA points.

Darja was in cruise mode in the summit clash, taking full advantage of an error-prone Carole. Carole took an off-court medical timeout to treat her back, and returned to action.

The comeback was brief. Oddly enough, Carole threw in the towel after hitting a crisp backhand cross-court winner.

Darja and Carole stated that they were impressed with the facilities on offer, and that the KSLTA is well suited to host WTA events.

The results:

Singles:

Final:

Darja Semenistaja (Lat) bt Carole Monnet (Fra) 6-1, 3-0 (retd).

-Team Sportstar

ITF men’s tennis tournament: Bogdan Bobrov wins title

Fourth seed Bogdan Bobrov emerged the champion as his opponent, top
seed Oliver Cawford of Britain gave a walkover, owing to a back injury, in the final of the $25,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament at the Arera Club on Sunday.

It was the eighth singles title of his career for the 26-year-old Bobrov, who had earlier won the doubles title in partnership with Luca Castelnuovo of Switzerland.

The results (final): Bogdan Bobrov w.o. Oliver Crawford (GBR).

-Kamesh Srinivasan

GOLF

Shubankar Sharma finishes 16th, McIlroy grabs record 4th title in Dubai

India’s Shubhankar Sharma carded a five-under total that gave him a tied 16th finish, his best position here, at the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday.

Sharma, who previous best finish was a tied 22nd in 2021, played solidly on a course that had a challenging rough and penalised small errors. He shot 2-under 70, and like his earlier rounds, it could have been a little better.

It was a good start to the season for Sharma, with five birdies against three bogeys, two of which came late at the 15th and 16th holes. The win fetched him over a hundred points on the Race to Dubai Standings and over 100,000 Euros in earnings.

Describing the week and the start to the season, Sharma, who had rounds of 72-71-70-70, said, “I would say it is very positive and very gritty. I wasn’t feeling too well at the start of the week. So, I had to be patient with the body and the game.

“I thought I managed myself, and I know there wasn’t a very deep (low) round, but this golf course isn’t the easiest – Rory did shoot nine under but he seemed to be playing a different golf course.

“This week, I had four decent rounds of par or better. Every round could have been better by a couple of shots, but that’s golfing for the first week.

“After knocking off the rust of December I’m quite happy with this week. Hopefully, this will get better,” said Sharma.

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy (70) stood firm over the final nine as his main rivals Adrian Meronk (71) and Cameron Young (74) fell over the final round, with the World No. 2 maintaining his love affair with the tournament.

He successfully defended the title and won it for a record fourth time, eclipsing the previous best of three by Ernie Els.

A week after seeing his one-shot lead turn into a 1-shot loss on the 72nd hole, McIlroy played the steadiest of back nines, and from being 10 behind after 36 holes, he was first past the line.

In 18 holes from the start of the third day to the turn at the nine, McIlroy was bogey-free and 12-under, while Young and Meronk had their blips.

As McIlroy won at 14-under, Meronk was second at 13-under, and Young finished a disappointing third at 12-under.

“Yeah, it’s really cool. You know, I didn’t really think about that during the course of the round,” McIlroy said after finishing as the champion.

“You know, it was a really tricky day. It was hard to get it close and make a ton of birdies. You know, the pivotal point for me came on the 8th and 9th hole. Making two threes there, that sort of set me up to try to control it on the way in.”

-PTI

HOCKEY

Beighton Cup: ERSA posts win

Eastern Railway Sports Association (ERSA) beat Income Tax-Tamil Nadu 4-3 in the Coal India 125 ^th Beighton Cup hockey tournament at the SAI astro-turf ground here on Sunday.

ERSA and Uttar Pradesh XI, which beat Odisha XI via penalty shootout, made it to the main round.

The results: Eastern Railway Sports Association 4 (Shivam Singh, Sujit Kumar, Aamon Tirkey, Samarth Prajapati) bt Income Tax-Tamil Nadu 3 (Chingappa, Mareeswaran, Manikandan); Uttar Pradesh XI 2 (Shahrukh Ali, Rohit Singh Chauhan) bt Odisha XI (Deepak Minz, Abhisek Lakra) via penalty shootout [UP XI 2 (Ajay Yadav, Rahul Yadav) bt Odisha XI 1 (Prajukta Nag)].

-Team Sportstar

TABLE TENNIS

KTTA’s State Championships- Anand, Jyothika triumph

Anand Shaji had lost the junior boys semifinal against Devlolan in the morning but the Ernakulam youngster had picked up some valuable lessons from that match. And the 18-year-old used them well as he defeated Alappuzha’s Devlolan 3-1 to win the men’s title in the KTTA’s Brillar-72nd Kerala State table tennis championships at the Rajiv Gandhi indoor stadium here on Sunday evening.

Meanwhile local girl Jyothika Hemant, who had almost stopped table tennis to focus on academics, won her maiden State women’s singles title with a straight-game victory over Alappuzha’s Reena Baiju.

The men’s final was a tight affair in the opening game but as the match progressed Anand, who is coached by Santanu Roy and Bobby Joseph at the Regional Sports Centre here, grew in confidence.

“In the junior semifinal earlier, I was blocking a lot. I’m not much comfortable with blocking,” said Anand, who came to Kochi from Wayanad a few years ago and was trained under the RSC’s Pratheeksha scheme for have-nots.

“I tried to attack more in the senior final, I was confident too and the presence of my coach Santanu at the match also helped.”

Jyothika had not played a tournament for nearly a year and a surprise call from the host Ernakulam District TT Association virtually changed her life.

“I didn’t expect anything, I had almost stopped and then Rani (Navas) aunty asked me whether I’d like to play…I thought I’d just play for fun,” said the 20-year-old Jyothika who had not won a State singles title in any age category earlier.

Devlolan and Kozhikode’s Swetha S. Nair won the under-19 boys and girls singles titles.

The results (singles, finals):

Men: Anand Shaji (Ekm) bt Devlolan (Alp) 11-13, 11-9, 11-5, 11-6.

Boys: Under-19: Devlolan (Alp) bt Vinay Sebastian (Alp) 11-9, 11-7, 11-9.

Under-17: Vinay Sebastian (Alp) bt H. Nithin Akkara (Ekm) 11-5, 11-6, 11-8.

Under-15: S. Harishankar (Alp) bt H. Nithin Akkara (Ekm) 11-9, 11-9, 13-11.

Under-13: R. Parthiv (Ekm) bt S. Dev Darshan (Ekm) 12-10, 14-12, 11-9.

Women: Jyothika Hemant (Ekm) bt Reenu Baiju (Alp) 12-10, 11-5, 11-6.

Girls: Under-19: Swetha S. Nair (Koz) bt Gia Maria (Wyd) 11-9, 8-11, 11-8, 11-8.

Under-17: Sarah Mariam Punnoose (Koz) bt Gia Maria (Wyd) 15-13, 12-10, 8-11, 11-2.

Under-15: P. Ameya (Pkd) bt P. Hamda (Pkd) 11-9, 9-11, 11-6, 11-6.

Veterans:

Men: Above-40: C. Pradeep (Ktm) bt Sreenivas Sudarshan (Tvm) 11-5, 11-9, 3-11, 13-15, 11-6.

Above-60: Sreetharaman Potti (Ekm) bt E.G. Tomy (Ekm) 6-11, 11-5, 11-9, 8-11, 11-7.

Women: Above-40: Soumya John (Koz) Bt Chithranjali (Ekm) 11-2, 11-5, 11-7.

-Stan Rayan